


Dollhouse

by orphan_account



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Fanvid, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 16:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3074090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever listens, this wallpaper glistens<br/>One day they'll see what goes down in the kitchen.</p>
<p>Places, places, get in your places<br/>Throw on your dress and put on your doll faces.<br/>Everyone thinks that we're perfect<br/>Please don't let them look through the curtains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dollhouse

The first time Lewis woke up and saw his face he didn't know it was him. He jumped back, his eyes widening, his hands automatically shielding his face from the ghostly creature stained in ripples where the water rained down onto the puddle. That's when he notices his hands, blazen with pink fire. That's when he knows his life has truly ended.

And it was all Arthur's fault.

_-~_ _Hey girl, open the walls, play with your dolls. We'll be a perfect family.~-_

The mansion starts off as a place to rest, nothing but a small room to encapsulate his lonely coffin but then as he rested he found the room would become more elaborate after he'd awaken. After a week's sleep the room transformed from a small motel room into a little apartment, wallpaper adorning the walls where there was only ghostly transparency before and a kitchen to the side stocked with food that he could not eat. Perfect for Vivi and Mystery, his mind thought quietly.

Interested but still too fresh from death, too baggaged by grief to be curious, Lewis went to sleep in his coffin again.

The next time he woke up was five days later. The coffin door slid open in the way it always seemed to do, telepathically and with a slight bounce and Lewis opened his eyes, the glowing pupils taking in the room boredly before widening, the orange heart pinned to his chest leaping in its successive beats.

He was in his room. The bedcovers neatly done, no wallpaper but bright purple paint covering wall to wall. All his stuff was here, his drawer, his alpaca plush, the framed picture of Mystery, him, Vivi and Arthur sitting innocuously on the night stand. Even the dent on the wall from where Mystery was chasing Galahad. It was all there.

Maybe, he thought, it was all a dream. A nightmare and he was back at his house and when he'd go downstairs he'd see his mama and papa, his little siblings that he hadn't seen in what felt too long.

He opened the door, forgetting all about the coffin that lied foreign in his room, the second stair landing all too familiar with it's brown moulding and picture frames, and went knocking on the next door over.

"Amanda!" He shouted, his tan knuckles rapping loudly on the solid oak door and his heart beating quickly. "Amanda open up!"

He expected to hear grumbles, faint whines, " _It's too early Lew._ " and the sounds of shuffling blankets. Instead the door opens and all he sees is an empty room. The bed was messily strewn, a multi-colored quilt lying half on the floor, and there were chip bags all over the desk but the toys were all in their places and so Lewis thought it okay to let it go just this once. He closed the door behind him and went to the door around the corner.

"Marie!" He called, jiggling the doorknob because he knew that would get the 12 year old up faster. The door opened under his shaking and he found an empty room, boy band posters staring him down. He went to the next room and practically yelled for Gabriel but the room showed the same, clearly occupied but no one there. He went downstairs, his footfalls loud in the eerily quiet household.

"Mamá? Papá?" He called. He popped his head in the kitchen, expecting them to be there making breakfast, the plates were all set but there was nothing on the stove, no lingering smell of pancakes or pinto beans or the fresh scent of a breakfast burrito. He walked passed the calendar, dates circled and events labelled in black marker and passed the mirror in the hall to look out the front door window. Maybe he woke up late and his parents were dropping off the others at school?

What he saw gutted him more than the stalagmite did.

Instead of the driveway, his mother's red SUV or his father's blue Toyota, the carefully manicured lawn with the flower beds right next to the door; he saw scraggly trees, a road leading nowhere and tall grass that his grandmother would tutt at, pinching his arm until he got the lawnmower out the shed.

He turns from the door, the picture frames of him and his family staring at him mockingly, he turns and runs to the oval mirror set above the side table, car keys sitting innocently by the picture of Arthur and him, smiling with their graduation caps on.

He leans in, his eyes taking in tan skin, purple hair, the ascot he loved so dearly fastened against his neck. He watches with rapt eyes as his reflection flickers, his hair turning pink, his tan skin flashing to white bone and the ascot wrapped firmly around his neck disappearing, the sensation nothing to his dead body but his insides-

His insides were hollow.

He smashed the mirror. His gloved hands feeling no pain. No pain at all. He picks up the picture frame, looking at Arthur's smiling face, their arms wrapped around each other's shoulder. If only he knew. If he knew sooner that this would happen he'd never have talked to the lonely boy tinkering in the study hall. He'd never have fallen for the innocent smile and the tenuous offer of friendship.

The picture frame splinters so realistically, the glass shattering under his pink flames and he takes out the picture, pinches at Arthur's frozen face. The picture burns slowly around his forefinger and thumb and he doesn't stop until Arthur's face is fully removed, burnt flakes bordering where the blonde's face used to be.

And when that isn't enough he crunches the photo in his hand and burns the whole thing. The ashes flitter to the tiled floor but it does not satisfy Lewis.

For a week he roams the house in his human visage. He sits at the table for breakfast, stares at the TV that only shows static on the ancient couch with the green stain on one of the large pillows from a cake that toppled over. He goes to his room, ignores the coffin and lay on the bed that is too comfortable and offers him no sleep. He does it for a week, ignoring the bedrooms in the household and the windows as if, if he didn't look, he could just pretend they were out doing an errand or sleeping in their rooms.

It works for a week before he gets sick of it, the familiar halls turning foreign to him in its constant emptiness and echoing the loneliness he felt as he lay awake on his plush bed. He storms into his coffin finally falling into a fitful slumber, hoping that when he woke up next, he'd be anywhere but there.

When he does wake up next, the sense of time he had with the him the last two times fails him. When he wakes up next he wakes to the sounds of the violin. It is slow, melodic, and he doesn't notice there's singing until the beings are in front of him, waving and wobbling to the music. There's five of them with hearts similar to the one pinned to his chest.

They are his, he knows, in the back of his brain.

He floats past them and cautiously takes in the room. It is bare of personal belongings, cold black tiles, spacious with familiar purple wallpaper. The sounds of violin are sad and he doesn't know where they come from. He floats past the coffin room and goes into a lonely hallway which only destination is stairs leading upward. He floats and the pink things follow, singing in tune to the violin music that does not fade or get louder.

The place is bigger. More than bigger it's an estate. There are halls the size of living rooms, dining rooms filled with long tables and glasses of wine, ballrooms that he knows his aunt Andrea would love. There are stairs that lead to nowhere, doors that are more like portals and paintings at the main halls. One of them looks like Phoenix Wright, the other looks like various other things characters he vaguely remembers from video games and cartoon shows. He doesn't know where the priest came from though.

They nod at him and instead of feeling surprised he nods back, floating towards the main room.

There's a chandelier above his head, suits of armor that turn to nod at him as well and still the pink ghosts follow him.

Lewis counts the things that Vivi would love: the moving picture frames, the doors that lead to nowhere, the mobile suits of armor. He entertains the ghosts that he comes to call Dead Beats, trying to differentiate them before giving it up as hopeless.

He roam the halls, trying to find the source of the haunting violin music and counts the many rooms he's made in his dreams, half bare and with no sign of personality in empty picture frames and impersonal wall ornaments.

He is lonely. Plain and simple and no moving paintings resembling characters he's loved, no ghosts that sing will make him feel better.

He goes to sleep feeling hollow and only wakes up to the loud noise of a car breaking down.

"Hello?" Someone asks and it sounds so close even though he knows he's room away, in his vertical coffin. He opens his eyes and a screen pops up, a man in a business suit, his black hair slicked back and busily typing on his phone. He knows, from roaming the estate so much that he's seeing from the suit of armor's point of view.

"My car broke down outside and my phone's not working!" The man says, pocketing his phone to look around, his left leg twitching somewhat.

Lewis steps out of the coffin and still the screen follows him in the air. He wills it away and instead summons a mirror. It floats above him and he watches as his white bone turns to tan skin, his pink hair easing into a steady purple fluff. He grasps his throat, his hands phasing through the ascot and hunches down a little. It'll be fine as long the man won't go for his throat.

He steps through the door that appears at the edge of the room and comes out into the foyer, the chandelier brightly lit above him.

The guy is short, shorter than Lewis who struggles not to float but walk, his footsteps light on the purple carpet. He's pulled out his phone again, glaring at the device which screen is a black void.

Lewis coughs.

The guy, whose thick eye ridge rests slanted over his eyes, says, "Can I borrow your phone? My car broke down and my phone's out of batteries."

Lewis does not have a phone. He doesn't even know if he could make a phone work in connection to the power lines. He tries anyway.

"Over there," He says pointing above the businessman's head, the man turns, his head craning and says, "Oh. Didn't notice that."

It's a small rotary phone, plugged into the wall that has no electric wiring to it. The guy tries three times, moving the dials with their little clicks, before he groans and slams the phone into it's holder.

"Don't you have an iPhone?" The guy asks, his frown exaggerated by the premature wrinkle lines around his eyes.

Lewis shrugs because he did but he didn't think if he produced one now that it would be useful in any way.

The guy, Lewis should really ask his name, looks out the windows. Lewis was surprised to find it was dark out.

"You could stay here for the night, charge your phone on an outlet." Lewis didn't know what kind of good that would do. Hopefully the guy might be able to start up his car again.

The guy nods, "Thanks," He says, "but I have to get to the next state over by tomorrow. Maybe I can stay for an hour or so; until my phone charges up."

Lewis, instead of feeling burdened, feels his heart, (not visibly seen. he checks), speed up. He's been so lonely. So lonely for too long. This is his chance at some conversation.

They go to the dining room because the guy, Charles, is hungry and Lewis pretends to eat with food that is air in his mouth. Meanwhile Charles starves down it down as if its all real.

"This is good." He says, his table manners speaking of a rich upbringing while his voice sounds like any other American Lewis would know. "Props to the chef."

"Thank you." Lewis replies, setting his fork down. It's been a good meal, Lewis having been updated on the past few months. It was nearing December now. Lewis' last remembered it being April, the sun shining beautifully into his room the last day he woke up alive. It was somewhat chilly out but that was nothing compared to a day adventuring with the gang.

He wondered what year it was.

"Thanks for the food." Charles says, moving to stand, his dinner chair squeaking loudly against the floor. "But I think I have to go."

"Stay." Lewis says, the words out of his mouth before Charles could tuck his chair in. He hated the house, the lonely feeling, the violin music that would haunt him for days. He hated how every bit of the house reminded him of some part of his family; the candles that his mother would love, the stove that his father would work hours over, experimenting with spices and family recipes until there was a new item on the menu. If only they were here.

If only he weren't dead.

There must be something in the way he looks because Charles backs away, saying, "Thank you for the food but I must really leave."

"I insist. You should stay." Lewis says, trying to ease back whatever expression is showing through his false face, "It gets really lonely here."

And then quietly the violin plays. Lewis doesn't know what triggers it but it filters through the dining room, the long table practically vibrating with its intensity as if it was playing through a loudspeaker or an intercom.

"I thought you said you live alone?" Charles asks. Abruptly, with a little willpower, the music stops.

"I do- that's just a faulty- y'know I-I like to listen to some music and it's broken." Charles nods, his left leg twitching, up and down, up and down.

"Stay." Lewis pleads and the music starts up again, a sorrowful tone that echoes Lewis' lonely thoughts.

Charles runs for it. Lewis chases after him.

They go through doors, portals that cycle back and forth, and then abruptly leads to different parts of the mansion.

"No, wait you don't get it!" Lewis yells, "Just stay a while longer!"

Charles does not scream but his face is white as he barrels pass the hall with the paintings, pass the room where Lewis' coffin lay, pass a millions suits of armor all lined up in perfect mirror reflections. He runs quickly and practically slams into the front door, hurriedly trying the door's handle, looking between the door and Lewis who floats above the air; even taller than the panicked man in front of him.

He knows he can make the man stay. He knows he can lock those doors forever for this is his house and he controls everything.

He also knows that no matter how long Charles stays, Lewis will not purge his loneliness but explore it in all the ways Charles flinches from him and his ghostly visage.

So he unlocks the doors and watches as Charles trips, not looking back, and runs, his black pants suit stained with dust and his head almost hitting a frozen puddle patch. He watches as the man enters his sports car, the ignition stuttering before moving along with pink static.

He watches until the doors close and even then he watches the doors still. In some insane hope that Charles would come back.

Charles does not come back.

- _~No one ever listens, this wallpaper glistens. One day they'll see what goes down in the kitchen._ ~-

Lewis sleeps for what seems like an infinity after that and only awakes when once again, someone calls.

This time it is a little old lady who's lost her way to bingo night. Her face is wrinkled and her hair is a black and white mixtures and she babies him for the whole tour, calling him words like, "Handsome young man" and "little ball of sunshine". She reminds Lewis of his grandmother.

He asks her the date, because "time passes funnily alone" and she tutts, giving him a sympathetic look and says, "March 26."

Like with Charles, he does not ask her the year.

They spend a long time together, sitting on comfy armchairs in front of a fireplace Lewis didn't even know he had. Lewis is glad when cheery violin music starts up from the depths of the mansion that she doesn't question it. Just says, "What a lovely song," and then continues talking about her various grandkids.

"And what about you?" Helen asks when an hour passes, "Such a huge house and it's only you?"

Lewis shrugs, the music flowing through the house turning slow. "Yes. I-I haven't talked to my family in a long time."

"Are they-?" She nods her head, to the paintings on the wall, all regal and dressed in old time clothes. Only a narcissist would hang pictures of themselves while they're alive in this day and age.

"Oh, no. They're not dead." Or at least as far as Lewis knew. "We just- haven't talked in a long time."

"You know, they invented the telephone for a reason dear." She says, pulling out an iPhone. It's frame large in his palms. New. Newer than the iPhone 4 he remembers came out last. He wonders what version this was. 5? 6? 7? He thinks back. Did Charles have a new iPhone too? He didn't get a close look, too preoccupied with an alive human being at his doorstep than the technology he had.

He wondered how long it would take for a new iPhone to be built and distributed world-wide.

It took a few minutes to enter his father's phone number, his fingers shaky on the touchscreen. It was seven in the evening. Would his dad even answer? Would he believe him?

He put the phone to his ear and waited. Helen, across from him, put on some earphones and pulled out an mp3. Faintly, he could hear a song similar to the antsy violin music playing around them from her earbuds.

His heart was beating wildly when the phone picked up, his father's familiar deep voice in his ear. "Hello?"

He didn't even know he was crying until Helen silently handed him a handkerchief. He didn't feel any wetness on his cheeks but then again he couldn't really feel the fabric of the tissue either so he wiped at his eyes anyway.

"Hello?" His father asks.

"Who is it?" Lewis hears his mother say, her voice faint but with every bit of smoothness Lewis remembered.

"Um." Right. Now or never. "Hello Mr. Reyes." He wanted to show them in person. This was no conversation to have over the phone.

_-~Picture, picture, smile for the picture. Pose with your brother, won't you be a good sister? Everyone thinks that we're perfect. Please don't let them look through the curtains.~-_

When he hangs up, he hands the phone back and Helen pops the earphones off with a smile.

"The music is quite nice. Isn't it?" She asks, the violin's somber music having transformed during his phone call into something more hopeful.

"It is."

She reaches up, her wrinkled hand coming to rest on his cheek, her thumb sweeping below his eye, no doubt wiping at a tear he can not feel. She smiles, her eyes growing fond like when she was talking about all her grandbabies and he doesn't notice her hand moving lower, too busy leaning in, trying to feel her warmth through bone marrow, until she sees her eyes widen. That's when he notices her hand phasing through where his neck is meant to be.

He jerks back and the violins stop with an earsplitting screech. Her hand is still held out, her body still leaned over the end table.

Lewis closes his eyes and counts to three. When he opens them again she is still there.

"No need to be so dramatic," She says, her hand back in her lap and her eyes taking him in. He looks towards his hands and clenches the black and white gloves. He looks towards his chest and wants to crush the orange heart that beats rapidly.

"Aren't you afraid?" He croaks, looking at her calm state. "Aren't you scared?"

And her, in all her elderly wisdom, just picks up his hand clenched on the arm of the chair and says, patting on the large glove, "I already knew." She nods to something behind them and he turns.

It's his shadow. The fire from the fireplace makes it look larger than it is, flickering from when the fire becomes larger or smaller but the outline of the armchair is clear. So is him sitting on it, except in his shadow he has no neck or jaw and in his shadow he has no hair but a smooth rounded head.

He turns to her and she smiles, welcoming, and continues talking about her family as if it was nothing. Lewis relaxes back into the armchair and listens.

Eventually she has to leave. Lewis doesn't try to make her stay past a few hours. She leaves the next morning and Lewis sees her off, the Dead Beats all singing her goodbye.

"Good luck with your family." She says.

"Thank you." He says. "Thank you so much."

"It was nothing." She says with a laugh.

He doesn't tell her it was everything but when he returns to the mansion's insides he's not surprised when he finds a picture of her and some of her family in the hallways.

_-~D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E. I see things that nobody else sees. (D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E. I see things that nobody else sees)~-_

His family was set to come next Thursday and he waited with bated breath. He didn't know if it would just be his father or his mother or if they'd bring the whole household but he knew it wouldn't matter if he didn't approach this correctly. He made the house a little smaller, less intimidating, urged the paintings elsewhere and banished the Dead Beats to the coffin room.

Nothing was going to mess this up.

He made sure there was no light source that would reveal him, no incriminating oddity, no chance that this would go wrong.

They drive up in his mother's red SUV and he sees his father exiting the car, going around the side to open the door for his mother. Gabriel and Marie pop out the side doors but Amanda doesn't come out. Probably at home with their babysitter, he did ask them to come for a rather late dinner.

He waits at the staircase of the second landing and when they knock, the door opens automatically. He watches from the armor's point of view as they look around interestedly. His parents are the same as ever, standing vigil and poking at Gabriel to look more interested.

"Oh, I like the candles!" His mother points out and Lewis smiles because he knew she would. While his parents look the same Gabriel and Marie have both grown in his absence. Gabriel, who was just fifteen when he last saw him has grown a few inches, past their mother's head but still not as tall as their father. Marie, who was just a young 12 has grown maybe not so much as their brother but still seems different in some way. Her hair is longer, cheeks less rounded.

He's missed them. Plain and simple. He's wandered the halls thinking of them and now they were here and he wasn't going to let them go for the world. He goes down the stairs and it's Gabriel who spots him first.

"Lewis!" He says, his eyes wide and his voice has gotten deeper. Truly, he's grown so much.

He hears gasps and he floats to the bottom, his mother and father shielding Gabriel and Marie from him.

"It's me." He says, to his parents shocked faces. "It's me Mamá. Papá."

"Lewis?" Marie asks, poking her head from behind their father's tux. He nods and looks to Gabriel whose eyes are weary, his mouth half open in shock.

"Marie, Gabriel, get in the car." His mother commands, her usually genial voice as hot as the spice she created daily.

"There's no need." Lewis says, his arms opening for inspection. Her eyes roam his body, looking for faults, hints that this was a lie. The way her shoulders slumped told him that she couldn't find any. "It's me Mamá."

His father looks at him, his mouth in a frown but his eyes so confused. "Arthur said you died in a freak accident."

And that's when it goes terribly wrong.

"Arthur is a liar." Lewis says, his insides squirming, the lit candles of the chandelier making the room blindingly bright. "Arthur's the one who  _killed_  me."

"I-I don't understand." His mother says, squinting, "He said he tried to save you."

Lewis laughs, deep dark and gut wrenching. "Save me." He states flatly, not noticing his mother's light pallor, not noticing Gabriel's step back or Marie's whimper.

"He lied to you. He lied to  _all_  of us. He  _murdered_  me."

He floats closer and they step back but he doesn't notice.

"Arthur was the one who killed me and he will  _ **pay**_ **.** "

There is a silence. No violins playing, no Dead Beats humming. There is a silence and then there is a single word.

"Run."

His mother makes a break for it, holding Gabriel's and Marie's arm like if she didn't they would disappear. His father grabs a candlestick and throws at it him and-

"No no this is all wrong. I'm not the villain!" He whacks the candlestick out of the air and it vanishes into smoke, still smelling like the spices he's loved for all his life.

"The door's not opening!" His mother shrieks.

"Why are you trying to leave? It's me. It's Lewis." He looks beseechingly to his younger siblings, the one's he's babysat and watch grow.

"Its a monster." Marie says, hiding in the folds of their mother's dress.

And that's when Lewis stops because Marie was never the girl to hide and Lewis never thought she'd hide from him, not unless they were playing a game of hide and go seek. Marie hasn't been one for hide and go seek for a while now, too old she had said. He can't have imagined her fond of it after his death.

Lewis stops and stares at his gloved hands, knowing too clearly what he looked like in this form. Scary upper teeth, glowing pink eyes, a skeleton floating on pink flames.

A monster.

He lets them go and his father crowds the family into the SUV like their life depended on it. Like they just escaped a prison cell and Lewis was their sadistic guard. He lets them go and he watches as the familiar vehicle gets farther in the distance until it disappears over the horizon.

He lets them go and wishes they'd forget about him. He couldn't burden them with this. He couldn't let their beloved son be twisted into a monster.

He has no jurisdiction pass the porch of his house, not that he knows of at least, and so he does not see his family's eyes shining a brief purple before the mansion turns, for the first time, completely invisible to the outside world. His heart cracks for the first time as well, the annoying orange turning into a beautiful blue that did nothing to cheer him up.

He was a monster.

He was a monster and it was all  _Arthur's_  fault.

_-~D-O-L-L-H-O-U-S-E. I see things that nobody else sees.~-_

Arthur did not want to go inside Pepper Paradiso. It was hard enough trying to explain Vivi's complete forgetfulness of Lewis. It was even harder to swallow down the guilt. But Vivi dragged him in, his sneakers doing nothing to stop the girl, and so here he was, facing his victim's parents while they smiled away, taking their orders.

It was approaching Lewis' one year-anniversary. He wondered if that made everything better or worse.

They ate, Vivi laughing about some mundane stuff meanwhile Arthur wondered where the picture on the wall of Lewis went. Maybe, with the one-year anniversary coming up, they couldn't handle the grief and put it down.

He asked Ms. Reyes at the counter while Vivi told him she'd wait outside.

"Lewis?" She had said, as if the name was foreign to her and not a name she'd sob out every day after he brought her the news, her face smudged with tears that she'd try to wipe away constantly when Marie, Gabriel or Amanda was watching. "Who's Lewis?"

Arthur's stomach drops, his mouth becoming dry. He licks his lips and asks Mr. Reyes who was working the stove. "So what are you doing for Lewis' one year anniversary. If you don't mind me asking."

Again, "Who's Lewis and what's the anniversary about?"

He turns to Gabriel working watier shift and asks and he does not know. He goes to Amanda and Marie, sitting in one of the back rooms and they do not know. He yells at them, shakes them, says "How do you not know your older brother?" And they stare at him because, "Gabriel is our only older brother."

His heart is pounding a mile a minute and he stares above their head for too long because suddenly Vivi is dragging him outside and apologizing.

"What was that all about?" She asks. He doesn't ask her about Lewis. He already knows her answer.

He closes his eyes, resting his head on the purple seat. When he opens them the vision of Lewis' impaled body doesn't leave him. Maybe this was his punishment. To be the only one to remember Lewis. The good, the bad, the bittersweet, the things he'd never take back and the one he always would if he had the chance.

When he finally starts up the car, Vivi talking about how weird Mystery's been acting lately and now Arthur, he wondered if the the dog forgot all about Lewis too. It wouldn't matter, he'd remember Lewis gladly if only to honor him.

Oh, but it's lonely being the only one to remember someone.

* * *

 

**Bonus video!**

 

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY NEW YEARS!  
> I hope you like the fic. The vids are more bonuses than anything. I kinda went cliche with the ending. Hope it was alright.


End file.
